it may be exensive but if we want to live then there SHOULD be a way to build one .
i mean come on
we need an idea 0% 0 Votes
Next, we are so antagonistic to nuclear, but it is the only technology we can put in place within 15 years that would allow an 80% reduction in fossil fuel consumption without severely limiting our wasteful industrial methodology.
That is, if we put in place that much wind power, it would take all of our current wind turbine and tower manufacturing capacity for 50 to 70 years.
Solar generating capacity can not be increased by enough annually to be more than a drop in the bucket, not because we do not have this solution, but because we can not churn them out fast enough.
Hydro... we have used up our prime locations and are on to using up less favourable sites. In our minds hydro should be very low cost, and we rebel at projected costs that exceed the cost of nuclear. But that is what happens when we use those less favoured sites.
We have tidal and wave energy. but the cost is well above nuclear.
Geothermal power plants thus far have been built very small and as a direct result our cost per kWh has been prohibitive, But geothermal in a much larger scale might still be viable. For provision of heat alone, geothermal would be a viable choice.
Passive solar heating is a viable choice where we seek to provide heat only. When we want to provide both electrical and heat, photovoltaic panels can provide both, but we are not able to produce enough with existing plant.
There are lots of problems with using biomass unless we derive our substrate from the oceans.
First among those problems is that we will run out of land to produce food plus biomass.
With rising cost of fossil fuels, there will be an incentive to develop nuclear power plants and all the other alternatives, but environmentalists will be out fighting tooth and nail to stop nuclear.
Saving the planet may have to include extracting a lot of methane (as methane or methane hydrate) in the far north. If this is not extracted and burned, the methane will escape as the arctic ocean thaws. That methane will make all the CO2 in the atmosphere irrelevant.
But because the northern ecosystem is fragile, we will have to fight decades of court battles about the environmental impact of drilling for methane.
People who want to have wind power in their homes will nonetheless be working the NIMBY deal to keep their home situated where wind power would be best. It is like having a major expressway built in the land behind your house... people want to solve the traffic congestion, but only if the expressway is a km away from home.
Next, far too many who want a green world are content to wait for government to do what they could do, individually or as groups.
If you want 10,000 wind turbines each averaging 500 kW of power (nominal 2 MW), then you get together a group of investors to build one, and more investors for more of them. But you do that 1000 times all at once, because if you do it all serially it will take forever. What you have to do very early is build plants capable of providing the turbines, generators, towers, switching gear, erection equipment, because before you get to tower 5 you will find existing capacity straining.
If you want to put 100,000 solar roofs you first have to build plant to produced 12,000 solar roofs per year.
We may not be able to stop global warming, particularly SEEING HOW SLOWLY WE ARE GETTING GOING. We are likely at or approaching a tipping point beyond which we will not be able to stop it. About all we can do if that is so, is reduce the greenhouse effect as much as possible to limit the maximum temperature we would experience.
The single most urgent task is to get northern methane capture under way before it escapes en mass. 9% 1 Vote
Gooo Green! 0% 0 Votes